Website Impersonations: The Amazons (.at versus .com)

Analyzing famous websites and retranslating their user-friendly surfaces into the global language of figurative, narrative (if non-linear) video, Ursula Endlicher has clearly gone to the heart of the matter. Rather than land- and cityscapes, it is the structure of brand Websites that have become our daily environment; constructing personalities embodying the spirit of such Web-sites is bound to become a major field of artistic activity. Such creative analysis seems of particular interest when it involves a global Internet seller that has become a brand itself and knows how to adapt its appearance to preconceived notions of market culture. The resulting difference between the U.S. Website of that brand and its various European subsidiaries, in particular the German/Austrian ones, is not only a fascinating and at the same time sobering example of cultural diversity in the 21st century, it is also as subjective as it gets and invites viewers to superimpose their own desires and identities.

(Excerpt from ''The future of the past or the past of the future?'' from the catalog for ''Switching Worlds: Desires and Identities'' by Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, director of the Austrian Cultural Forum New York and curator of the show.)